Soft Coup In Libya Causes Meltdown, Breakup

The UN backed General National Accord (GNA) arrived in Tripoli over a week ago and current events are looking more and more like a coup. Meanwhile last Friday PM Designate for the GNA suddenly flew to London on a "private visit"; odd time for him to leave Libya wouldn't you say?

There are consequences for Malta. A main one is that for most of the EU, the intended sanctions against GNA 'spoilers' are no problem for them as neither Abu Sahmain (Tripoli General National Congress, or GNC) nor Aguila Saleh (Tobruk House of Representatives, or HoR) are EU citizens and also neither have much in the way of overseas assets but the exception seems to be Malta. So the Maltese authorities are having to trawl through everything at the UN & EU's behest to find their assets and then to freeze them. Knowing that the UN/EU is likely to suddenly unfreeze them if these two men are intimidated enough to decide to cooperate. Either way Malta is put in an awkward position.

Let's backtrack a little. The GNA consisted in total of a nine-strong presidency council led by a UN selected prime minister, Fayez Serraj, and with Tripoli airspace closed, they were conveyed to their capital city by Italian frigate, transferring at sea to a small rusty Libyan coastal patrol vessel to preserve the illusion that they were not being helped by western powers. But the GNA had fractured even before they were helped aboard the Italian vessel, with two of the nine abruptly resigning, accusing the leadership of being too cozy with Tripoli militias and for their opposition to Gen. Hafter remaining head of the army.

Nevertheless, the so called GNA, more correctly called the Presidential Council, now reduced to seven, arrived in the capital, choosing to set up office in the naval base, the only part of the capital judged safe from roaming militias.

A coup, in which a small number of people take control of a state, can be defined in many ways. On the one hand a coup can be a seizure of power through brute force. On the other, it can be the usurping of power without violence. Last week has seen what amounts to the latter unfold in Libya.

Reinforcing this coup reality, seventy three members of the Tripoli parliament, the GNC, agreed this week to reform themselves as the State Council, designed by the UN as part of the legislature of the Serraj government. However, most of the 73 were not elected to the GNC, as the UN rules stipulate, but are Libya Dawn acolytes added to the GNC after it captured Tripoli by force two years ago.

Compounding the confusion, the State Council then amended the UN rules, declaring they had the right to self-declare the new government valid. That’s a coup folks, an Islamist one, egged on by the West.

The elected HoR in Tobruk, which the UN had insisted must agree to the plan, has been discarded in actuality. UN officials were angry that the HOR failed to vote yes to the plan and indeed failed to even meet to discuss it in recent weeks.

The fact is that the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) the UN backed document of December 17, 2015 has been torn up. Gone also is the LPA’s stipulation that new chiefs must be appointed to the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) which hold tens of billions of dollars of foreign cash and assets. Instead, the former chiefs, approved by Libya Dawn, have control.

The big winners are therefore the Muslim Brotherhood and various factions from Misrata, and Libya Dawn, who, despite losing in the 2014 elections, now have international recognition from western powers, and through this control of Libya’s vast overseas assets. Other specific winners are Abdel Hakim Belhadj and MB leader Ali Sallabi both of whom have been feted by Martin Kobler in Istanbul in the past few days.

It is a personal victory for Britain’s Libya envoy Jonathan Powell, who mainly brokered the deal and boasts of his close links to the Brotherhood. In a damning e-mail, newly released, between Sidney Blumenthal and Hillary Clinton, Powell wrote about his ability to use his success in negotiating between the IRA and the British government twenty years ago to end terrorist campaigns. Powell further boasted that this model, being used in a number of countries through a “below radar” NGO, is workable given his close contacts, he claims, with British Intelligence. A very doubtful assertion.

But the lack of transparency over the Libya process, is coming into sharp focus. Panamagate is erupting, highlighting the lack of transparency over the world’s wealth, and it is just this lack of transparency that Powell is encouraging with Libya.

The breakup of Libya is imminent, along an east-west fault line, and the irony is that Western powers will have been the orchestrator.

It seems to me that the West's plan for Libya is now in final meltdown.

why the fuck are the un/west calling so many shots? is that due the fact they turned libya into a clusterfuck and now want to correct some of there bullshite? it defies logic.. anyone supportive of the un/wests involvement in libya need to get lost.. britian on the foreign policy operative level is a complete disgrace..

People need to understand clearly that the UN is just another propaganda/control mechanism of American empire.

People also need to understand that all the kabuki going on is about control of global finance.....which is now and has been for centuries, private.

In Libya, there are the existing billions at stake as well as ongoing control/milking of the resources in the ground, yet to be exploited.

Ongoing empire is faith based to a degree and that faith seems to be failing but far from dead. It is encouraging to witness the public waking up to the reality of having a problem..... What happens when they (revolt/fart as a group) is anyones guess.

April 19 Baal temple will be erected on Trafalgar Sq in London. On that day many human sacrifice events happened in the past (OKC, Waco, ...). Some believe last 2 weeks of April are devoted by the Moloch believers to ritual children murder.

That day in the NYC Democratic Convention will be held. Is it possible that a false flag operation is planned, in which people will be massacred, Bernie Sanders will be neutralized (killed, crippled) and Hitlary Killton will emerge as a survivor/victim of the "ISIS" attack as the only Democratic contender gaining enormous support out of pity for her "plight"?

Bernie will be traveling to Vatican shortly before... To obtain some life-saving intel possibly...?

Lack of transparency breeds paranoia.
The UN's not populated with noble, conscientious leaders, as I was taught when a child. The members are greedy, grasping manipulators & pirates intent on tearing whole countries apart, annihilating entire populations, poisoning air, water, land & all life indiscriminately in pursuit of power.
I'm thoroughly disheartened & disgusted, angry & ashamed of my country's part in this macabre endeavor.

Apparently Gaddafi's daughter Aisha has obtained the loyalty of Libya's largest clan, the Warfalla, and also many prominent Lybians with whom she wants to establish a secret gov and operate against NATO in Lybia. Maybe this is why NATO/EU/US are so desperate to get a puppet gov in place, so that they have justification for a military intervention in order to "save" the puppet gov from the reemerging Gaddafi-gov?

@9: I agree with you. I was always hoping Gaddafi's son could free himself from captivity, and get the Lybian tribes and Russians behind him. At least the family members have the knowhow how to run that clannish country, and are aware of the games being played by NATO.

Another coup that we're almost overlooking is the one happening in Brazil.. All the anti-empire administration in South America are being toppled one by one.. First it was Honduras, then Argentina.. Now Venezuela and Brazil are on the line..

@12 unfortunately these countries don't have much of a defense.
They are overpopulated and are hastily depleting their resources/deforesting. Also the leadership tends to be corrupt or ineffective.. I don't see any Castro-level leaders

There are no Castro-level leaders in South America or anywhere in the world because they have been eliminated by the tools of empire ever since WWII.

The anti-empire administrations in South America have not been able to break away from the jackboot of global private finance. Anti-empire administrations don't survive if they can't control their money supply and eliminate their oligarchic structure (more important that overpopulation issue IMO). The China AIIB alternative to the IMF/World Bank needs to mature right about now.

[.]The move may come as a shock to some in the British establishment who had expected a request for soldiers now that the war-ravaged state’s UN-brokered unity government has assembled in Tripoli.
A UK government source told the Times on Wednesday the request had not materialized. The source felt the force structure being floated – an Italian-led brigade of 6,000 with a 1,000-strong British component – would exacerbate internal divisions.

[.]

Another unnamed source, a British minister, told the Times it was thought the head of the unity government, Fayez al-Sarraj, may wait until he is more established before requesting foreign military help.

Al-Sarraj and his government only arrived in the country a fortnight ago amid fears their entry would spark violence among the rival militias.
“The idea that the PM is yet able to give the green light to anything is premature, he needs to make sure he has the necessary support,” the minister told the Times.

“We are in a sensitive period. Nobody has drawn any firm conclusions. We’ve got a long way to go but there is a recognition things are extremely serious.”

European Council on Foreign Relations Libya specialist Mattia Toaldo told the paper that officials in the new administration are afraid of being seen as “foreign puppets” and hope “people in Europe will stop talking about this for a few weeks.”

The new unity government is the best hope for preventing economic collapse and the spread of Islamic State.

[.] Libya was once prosperous, but nearly a fifth of its people are now thought to suffer from malnutrition. The only thriving business is the smuggling of desperate migrants into Europe from Tripoli.

[.]Greater domestic security will boost the economy. So, too, would the promise of Western investment to rebuild Libya’s hydrocarbons industry. A commitment by the UN to begin unlocking the assets of Libya’s $67 billion sovereign-wealth fund (frozen since 2011) will also help.

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Notice the Economist had not a word of the chaos created by Western governments'/NATO's toppling of Ghaddafi, except noting this once prosperous well-fed country is now suffering:

jfl @ 6:"the USG's 'foreign policy' is to cut the exploitable world into bite-sized pieces for the TNCs, no matter the consequences for the 7 billion human and countless other inhabitants of our planet."

Sorry for the editing, but, the above statement is, "bottom line". And, not just the U$G, but their surrogates in NATO.

h/t to Xymphora for the link. I read it thinking they somehow approved of the views and was confused until I read the rest of Xymphora's little blurb:

Even by Vox standards this is amazingly, mind-bogglingly, stupid, and I can only surmise wheelbarrows of shekels were involved (note the Saban involvement).

Hillary would undoubtedly use the same logic to justify her Libyan actions as justified and productive. I hope someday the Libyans can forgive the U.S., but I can't for the life of me figure out why they would.

"Obama admitted that the biggest misstep of his presidency was failing to plan the aftermath of the intervention in Libya."

"Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya," Obama told the Fox News channel in an interview broadcast on Sunday, commenting on his worst mistake during two presidential terms."

"British troops may not be deployed to Libya after all because the head of the North African state’s new unity government turned down the offer of Western soldiers to help eliminate Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

The move may come as a shock to some in the British establishment who had expected a request for soldiers now that the war-ravaged state’s UN-brokered unity government has assembled in Tripoli."

STRASBOURG (Reuters) - "Alarming" numbers of migrants are reaching Libya to cross the Mediterranean, a senior EU official said on Wednesday, adding a warning that Italy must be ready for them to avoid new border chaos inside Europe.

The article fails even to mention in passing the reason that Libya lies devastated and destroyed, many of her own people forced to migrate, certainly in no position to stop any migrants passing through Libyan from other points in North Africa.

Now this, from these murderous bastards in the EU, as they prepare to lay Libya waste again!

The tragedy of Libya is that her national wealth vastly exceeds her national population. Not enough people to stand in the way of the jackals. The colonialism of the last 500 years is still the only way to parse aggressive actions on the Earth. This will take some time to die.

I know nothing about this place, it's the beginning of the learning curve for me. But already, too many African songs of lamentation echo in my ears around this great shell shock known as Libya. I have nothing material to offer, but one is called to bear witness.

I remember the words of Dunya, a Russian girl who runs informal humanitarian aid into Donbass: "The real tragedy of war is that it can happen to anyone." One day you're living your life. The next, madness descends, for no reason.

I'm shocked that I can offer nothing but my own lamentation to the plight of Libya.

Granted, the new government violates the LPA and usurps authority. However, it is supported by the pro-GNA faction of the GNC, and its president is a member of the HoR. Don't forget that some of the Libya Dawn militias supported the GNA and some didn't; and it appears that the pro-GNA faction has won.

"Libya Dawn has dissolved and therefore the government of Libya Dawn has dissolved. The moment 10 Libyan cities (which had previously supported Libya Dawn) signed a statement supporting the GNA, then Libya Dawn was over…."

I confess to knowing next to nothing about up to date Libyan power politics, but I thought I would stir the pot...

Quote: At a high-level meeting in Tunis, the United Nations Development Programme launched an initiative to assist with the stabilization of Libya and its new unity Government, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said today. The initiative, called the Stabilization Facility for Libya, is an undertaking of the Libyan Government of National Accord, supported by UNDP and the international community… “The Stabilization Facility for Libya aims to support the Libyan Government of National Accord providing very visible and tangible quick-wins to the population at the local level” UNSMIL said. (my italics)

Libya continued w a non-capitalist system even after the fall of the USSR. It was a form of direct democracy called anarco-sydicalism. I understand that the workers in the factories made most decisions about what was made.

1. In Libya a home is considered a natural human right
In Gaddafi’s Green Book it states: ”The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum.

2. Education and medical treatment were all free
Under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad.

3. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project
The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great manmade river was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. It was funded by the Gaddafi government and it said that Gaddafi himself called it ”the eighth wonder of the world”.

4. It was free to start a farming business
If any Libyan wanted to start a farm they were given a house, farm land and live stock and seeds all free of charge.

5. A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies
When a Libyan woman gave birth she was given 5000 (US dollars) for herself and the child.

7. Cheap petrol
During Gaddafi’s reign the price of petrol in Libya was as low as 0.14 (US dollars) per litre.

8. Gaddafi raised the level of education
Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. This figure was brought up to 87% with 25% earning university degrees.

9. Libya had It’s own state bank
Libya had its own State bank, which provided loans to citizens at zero percent interest by law and they had no external debt.

10. The gold dinar
Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise, Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency linked to gold. Following in the foot steps of the late great pioneer Marcus Garvey who first coined the term ”United States of Africa”. Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the world economy into chaos.

I read that he offered to step down rather than have his country bombed. They hushed it up so they could attack the country. He was a little eccentric. He was a great man and entirely uncorrupted. Muammar Qaddafi rest in peace.
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The ICC says Abdullah al Senussi, ex-head of Libya's Security Service, can receive a fair trial in Libya, altho there are public videos of his torture in prison. http://nsnbc.me/2016/02/18/five-years-on-the-destruction-of-libya-continues/
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I find surreal the "explanations" of why we destroyed Libya. Sometimes it frightens me that people will not acknowledge a truth that to me seems so apparent: The attack on Libya was to produce chaos and weakness, in line with the continuing process of building a global oligarchy. Further attacks are to secure the oil and other wealth, maybe partition, perhaps to further weaken Egypt. You know, there are public statements by the oligarchs of wanting a world govt, of wanting a vastly reduced population, of their belief that only they can think. To envision, project and accomplish their desires w/o moral scruple or compassion is the acme of their self-worth. It's explicit in their beliefs.

The ambassadors of Britain, France and Spain arrived in the Libyan capital on Thursday ... seeking to end the country’s turmoil ... heading to the naval base where the unity government has set up operations.

The oil-rich country has had two rival administrations since mid-2014 when a militia alliance overran Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the recognised parliament to flee to the remote east.

Gee ... no mention of the 'revolution' that led to the "country's turmoil"...

On 19 March [2011], the first act of NATO allies to secure the no-fly zone by destroying Libyan air defences began when French military jets entered Libyan airspace on a reconnaissance mission heralding attacks on enemy targets.

In the weeks that followed, American forces were in the forefront of NATO operations against Libya. More than 8,000 American personnel in warships and aircraft were deployed in the area. At least 3,000 targets were struck in 14,202 strike sorties, 716 of them in Tripoli and 492 in Brega. The American air offensive included flights of B-2 Stealth bombers, each bomber armed with sixteen 2000-pound bombs, flying out of and returning to their base in Missouri on the continental United States. Clearly the support provided by the NATO airforces was pivotal in the ultimate success of the revolution.

... and there you have the story of the US/EU 'success' in Libya. Not in the corporate news, however ...

Libya slid into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi, with an array of militias, including extremist groups, carving out fiefdoms across the country and backing rival authorities. The chaos allowed IS and other extremist groups to take root, and transformed Libya into a major conduit for illegal migration to Europe.

“The Stabilization Facility for Libya aims to support the Libyan Government of National Accord providing very visible and tangible quick-wins to the population at the local level,” UNSMIL said.

... and, as Noirette points out in her original @25, the US/NATO/UN are preparing more "very visible and tangible" 'development' for the poor Libyans.

They are all devils. Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the USA, the UN ... what other word can describe their infernal, diabolic actions? D₃+D. Death, devastation, destruction, and deceit. Europe's - the "West's" - chief export for the past 500 or 700 years.

Fantastic find you have there, am surprised that information still exists given corporate media's manipulations. Gaddafi was greeted favourably by TPTB until the U.S.A.F. lost Wheeler AB, a R&R and training destination for European operations of the earlier1960's and from that point gathering storm clouds descended, obscuring Libya from view. The reprise of what transpired looks to be the most historical accurate summation yet available - good work. Many crimes against humanity have been involved in the overthrow and murder of Gaddafi's legitimate government - good call.

No, T-Bear it's not my research on Muammar Gaddafi. It's mostly from Global Research. The ten points were from the link I gave; I just forgot to put quotes. If you search "Gaddafi" from within their site there are years' worth of his naming the truth publicly:

"during the UN General Debate in 2009, when Muammar Gaddafi, Leader of the Revolution of the Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, spoke in the name of the African Union:

“We are about to put the United Nations on trial; the old organization will be finished and a new one will emerge.”

"Gaddafi called for investigations into ten past wars of permanent members of the Security Council, the US, UK and France, to be followed by trials of those guilty of causing these wars, suffering and millions of deaths and suffering “that has surpassed that brought by the Nazis.”

"By contrast, during this year’s General Debate, in which delegates lamented the current deplorable condition of today’s world of death and destruction, of poverty, extreme poverty and starvation, and in a serious tone of voice gave lip service to the usually heard plea that everyone try harder to rectify the murderous exploitation of most of humanity, no delegate even once called for bringing anyone or any nation before the law." --http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-un-general-assembly-latin-americans-dont-call-for-nuremberg-prosecution-of-western-leaders-gaddafi-did-in-2009/5480927
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Repeatedly he bore the responsibility of stating the truth-- and the risk. We Americans have not even suffered but so many will not bear the responsibility of thought, of judgement and of saying it in as many public venues as we can. At least here on this site people have judged US foreign policy. Well, so long as the word "conspiracy" is not mentioned. Men plan together the murder of a nation, and at least it's not excused as a "mistake" or "failure to manage the aftermath."

America's great error, even here, is the failure to acknowledge that the oligarchical actions at home and abroad have a purpose, an endpoint. Their failure to acknowledge it guarantees its fruition. Impossible to react appropriately against an unidentified, unstated attack. When sufficient Americans shrug aside the fear of being called a "conspiracy theorist" and forthrightly accuse the oligarchs of conspiracy, of treason against this nation and all others we will have won. But time is running short.

Rest assured you needn't loose any sleep for fear that you will be accused of originality by any pen I should (metaphorically) wield - the phrase 'nice find' should have seen to that. All too often criticism has been levelled at your 'contributions' and for once approbation would make for a pleasant change - my error, won't happen again having seen the results. Thanks for your reply anyway.